10:30 Jorge Manilla: Here and now, it is just me! What you believe and what you see, but the answer always will be different.

11:30 Joar Nango: Beyond chaos – situatedness as a tool in indigenous placemaking.

12:30 Q&A

Joar Nango was initially trained as an architect, and his work incorporates investigations of traditions and experiences from his sami background in Northern Norway, characterized by flexibility pragmatism and adaptation to nature. He addresses indigenous identity and decolonization, looking at these topics not in isolation but as an expression of the ongoing dynamics between the so-called cultural centre and its peripheries. Nango is presented at the annual Festival Exhibition at Bergen Kunsthall this year. As a part the exhibition he is showing his library of books about the history of Sápmi as well as a series of re-appropriated historical images from the 1700s.

Also Jorge Manilla does research on historical and cultural images where the indigenous expression is appropriated and mixed with other tendencies in the Mexican society, like religion and popular culture. As an internationally acclaimed artist in the jewelry field, he is concerned with topics like the body, culture, rituals, death and resurrection - and the psychological and mental impact this has on people.

Jorge Manilla is a professor of metal and jewellery art and subject area coordinator at KHiO. In his artistic practice, he is working on different projects with various organizations throughout Latin America, where he makes people reflect, reinterpret and questions different aspects of identity.

Jorge Manilla, the son of a family of Mexican goldsmiths and engravers, studied visual arts at the Academy of San Carlos, in Mexico. He received a highly technical jewellery training at the Academy of Craft and Design from the Mexican Institute of Fine Arts. He holds a Bachelor degree in sculpture from The Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent (2003) and a Master's degree in jewellery and silversmithing from St Lucas University College of Art and Design (2006). Manilla did his research project (PhD) at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp Belgium under the name “Other bodies”. Since 2010, he is giving workshops around the world. His work has been shown in several exhibitions and is collected in the five continents. By creating jewellery, Jorge Manilla investigates his environment - religion, emotions, relationships and the meaning of life. Over the last years, the artist has rediscovered his love for the colour black. To Manilla black relates to something hidden, the secretive and the unknown, and as a result it creates an air of mystery. It keeps things bottled up inside, hidden from the world. His dark forms and shapes create a barrier between the meanings of the objects and the outside world. Black implies self-control and discipline, independence and a strong will. It gives an impression of authority and power. For Manilla, black is the end, but the end always implies a new beginning. When light appears, black becomes white, the colour of new beginnings.

Joar Nango (b. 1979, Alta) lives in Tromsø. He is an architect with a degree from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and his work with site-specific installations and self-made publications explore the boundary between architecture, design and visual art. Selected exhibitions: Festspillutstillingen, Bergen Kunsthall (2020), Chicago Architecture Biennale (2019), Abadakone, National Gallery of Canada (2019) documenta 14, Athens/Kassel (2017); Potential Architecture, University of Westminster, London (2015); Western Front, Vancouver (2014); Hacking Objects of Desire, with Sigbjørn Skåden, Torpedo Factory Art Center, Target Gallery (2014); SAW Gallery, Ottawa (2013, solo); Norwegian Sculpture Biennial, Oslo (2013, solo); The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo (2013); Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York (2012).

Picture above: Joar Nango. Unknown-3: Girjegumpi - Sámi Architectural Library, Jokkmokk, Sweden.